LED Medical Diagnostics this week announced an agreement to form a collaboration to develop and commercialize a progression-risk assessment test for oral cancer. The agreement is with BC Cancer Agency to form a relationship with Genome British Columbia. The test, LED said, is based on loss of heterozygosity.

The Genome BC Strategic Opportunities Fund is funding the project called “Development of an actionable molecular test for risk assessment of oral precancers,” which is designed to leverage research that Canada’s National Institute of Health and the Terry Fox Research Institute funded. Catherine Poh, an associate professor of dentistry at the University of British Columbia, is the project leader.

In a statement, LED Medical’s Founder and Director Peter Whitehead said, “Until recently, a major barrier to oral cancer prevention has been the lack of validated risk predictors for oral premalignant lesions. …This test, which measures specific genetic changes that have been shown to predict aggressive tumor growth, has the potential to lower oral cancer morbidity and mortality rates.”

“Throughout the development process we will strive to create the first test that quantifies the likelihood that an oral lesion will progress to cancer,” he added.

LED Medical is based in British Columbia and develops LED-based visualization technologies.